Page 68 of The Dom

“I need to talk to you about what happened with Calah.”

He tensed, and I could see him getting ready to tell me to leave, but Trissa reached out and put a hand on his arm.

“Listen to him,” she said gently. “Hear him out.”

He nodded mutely and gestured to the loveseat next to the couch. Ashlee sat next to me, her hand solid in mine, anchoring me. When Joshua sat, Trissa put her arms around his, and I realized she was doing the same thing for him. Neither of us was comfortable with the prospect of the conversation we were about to have, but the women in our lives would keep us steady while we did it.

“I’m not a saint,” I began, “and I won’t say that I haven’t done some pretty shitty stuff, but what happened with Calah…it wasn’t quite as cut-and-dry as it seemed.”

He didn’t curse at me or demand I leave, so I was going to count that as proof I should continue.

“While you were at Julliard, learning how to be a kickass musician, I was wading through all of the shit that comes with the business side of the music industry.” What had happened with Calah had been one damn stupid decision, but my reason for doing it came from something other than sex. “I saw all the ways the industry chewed people up and spit them out. I didn’t want that to happen to you.”

He didn’t try to hide his disbelief, but he didn’t interrupt, so I kept going.

“The day after you and the rest of the band met with me to discuss your demo, Calah approached me as I was leaving the building. She asked if she could get the ‘family treatment’ since you two were dating. When I told her I didn’t know what that meant, she said that she wanted to cut a demo too. I told her she had to make an appointment like anyone else.”

I could still hear her voice in my head as she made her counteroffer.

“She asked if there was anything she could do to move things forward more quickly. I pretended I didn’t know what she meant, and then she grabbed my dick, right there in the lobby, and said that she would exchange sex for a record deal.” She’d actually been much cruder than that. “I asked what you would think about that, and she said that you understood how the industry worked.” I paused, unsure if I wanted to tell him all of what Calah had said. He was over her, but it’d still hurt.

That was what had gotten me into trouble in the first place, I reminded myself. Telling him what I thought he should know because I was trying to protect him.

Ashlee squeezed my hand, and the reminder that she was there helped me get through the rest.

“She said that you understood it because the two of you were together to help advance each other’s careers. That she’d always wanted you to introduce her to me so she could get on the Manhattan Records label. She said she fucked you to get to me and she’d fuck me to get famous.”

Joshua’s jaw clenched, and I saw Trissa tighten her grip on him. I was almost there.

“I told her that if she had sex with me, I’d let her cut a demo. I honestly wasn’t sure that she’d follow through with it, but I wanted her to do something that would break the two of you up. I thought I was protecting you.”

“By fucking her.” His voice was flat. “You couldn’t have just told me what she’d said?”

“I don’t have an excuse for how I did it,” I said. “I was young and an asshole. I figured if I could have sex and break you guys up, why not do it that way.”

He was quiet for a minute, then reluctantly admitted, “I probably wouldn’t have believed you anyway. It wasn’t like we’d had the best relationship before that happened.”

“And now?” I asked.

He finally looked me in the eye. “I think we can work through it.”

Forty-Two

Ashlee

Nate’s confession wasn’t what I’d expected it to be, if I was being completely honest with myself. He exercised incredible self-control in the bedroom, but as long as a woman was willing, he didn’t seem to feel the need to restrain himself much. Our own relationship was proof of that.

The moment I’d told him I wanted him, he hadn’t tried to talk me out of it. I’d assumed something similar had happened with Calah. His brother’s girlfriend threw herself at him, and he couldn’t help himself.

What did it say about me that I had such a low opinion of him that I was surprised that he took responsibility for his actions? And then there was his reasoning behind it. A bit of immaturity, and as he’d said, being an asshole, but he hadn’t done it with the intention of keeping it from Joshua, wanting to hurt his brother, or even not caring about who Calah was.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Nate said, twisting a stray lock of my hair around his finger. “Are you sure you want to come home with me? I’ll understand if you need to process everything before–”

“I’m sorry,” I blurted out. At the confusion on his face, I clarified, “I should have trusted that you’d tell me about things in your own time and that if you were keeping anything from me, I didn’t need to know it yet.”

He bent his head and brushed his lips across mine once, twice. “I’m sorry I got so defensive about you asking me about it. Even if I just hadn’t been ready to talk about it, I should have handled it better. You were right to tell me that we both needed to think about things.”

My stomach clenched, and not in a good way. I told myself that he wouldn’t have asked me along tonight if he’d planned on ending our relationship. If anything, since he’d confessed to Joshua in front of me, he seemed more relaxed.

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